"Their heads," the king barked abruptly. His head swung in a muddled arc between the captain and the counselor. Haranides was shocked to realize that he had forgotten the king was present. "I want their heads on pikes, Aharesus. Stole my... my tribute from Yildiz. Stole my dancing girls." Tiridates directed a bleary smile at the slave girl, then jerked his gaze back to Haranides. "You bring them back to me, do you hear? The girls, the pendants, the casket. And the heads. The heads." With a belch the king sagged back into a sodden lump. "More wine," he muttered. The blonde youth darted away and returned with a crystal vessel and a fawning smile.
The captain's sweating increased. It was no secret Tiridates was a drunkard, but being witness to it could do him no good.
"The insult to the honor of the king is, captain, paramount, of course," Aharesus said with a careful glance at the king, who had his face buried in the goblet of wine. "On a wider view, however, what must be considered is that the palace was entered and the Chief King's Counselor murdered."
"My lord counselor-thinks that was the reason for it all, and the other just a screen?"
The Counselor gave him a shrewd look. "You've a brain, captain. You may have a future. Yes, it makes no sense otherwise. Some foreign power wished the Counselor dead for some purpose of their own.
Perhaps Yildiz himself. He has dreams of an empire, and Malderes often thwarted those plans." Aharesus fingered the golden seal on his chest thoughtfully. "In any case, it's doubtful that Yildiz, or whoever is responsible, would send his own people into the very palace. One of those being questioned screamed the name of the Red Hawk before he died."
"She's just a bandit, my lord Counselor."
"And a man babbles when he's dying. But she's a bandit who will dare much for gold, and we have no other way to search. Until one of those being questioned loosens his tongue." The chill in his tone promised the questioning would continue until many tongues were loosened; Haranides shivered. "You, captain, will take two companies of cavalry and hound this Red Hawk. Run her to ground and bring her here in chains. We'll soon find if she had aught to do with this business."
Haranides took a deep breath. "My lord Counselor, I must have some idea of where to look. This woman brigand ranges the entire countryside." Incongruously, one of the slaves giggled. Tiridates had both fair heads clutched to his chest.
The stooped counselor flickered an eye at the king and pursed his lips briefly. "Before dawn this morning, captain, a party claiming to be pilgrims departed Shadizar by the Gate of the Three Swords. I believe these were the Red Hawk's men."
"I will ride within the hour, my lord Counselor," Haranides said with a bow. He suspected the guards at that gate were among those under the question. "With your permission, my lord Counselor? My King?"
"Find this jade, captain," Aharesus said, "and you will find yourself a patron as well."
He waved a bony hand in dismissal, but as the captain turned to go Tiridates lurched unsteadily to his feet, pushing the two pale-skinned slaves sprawling at his feet.
"Find my pendants!" the drunken King snarled. "Find my casket and my dancing girls! Find my gifts from Yildiz, captain, or I'll decorate a pike with your head! Now, go! Go!"
With a sour taste in his mouth, Haranides bowed once more and backed out of the audience chamber.
The garden of Imhep-Aton's rented dwelling was pleasant, a cool breeze rustling in the trees and stirring the brightcolored flowers, but the mage took no pleasure in it. He had had some idea that Conan could deliver the pendants before the five days he had bargained for-the necromancer had some knowledge of thieves, and the way their minds worked. But never had he expected the Cimmerian to revert to his barbarism and turn the palace into a charnel house. The chief king's counselor, in Set's name!
He cared not what Zamorans died, or how, but the fool had set the city on its ear with these murders.
Now Imhep-Aton must worry that the thief would be run to earth before the prize was delivered into his bony hands.
The mage whirled as his muscular Shemite servant came into the garden, his lean face so twisted that the big man quailed.
"I did as you commanded, master. To the word."
"Then where is the Cimmerian?" The thaumaturge's voice was deceptively gentle. If this cretin had bungled as well ....
"Gone, master. He has not been seen at the tavern since this morning, early."
"Gone!"
The brawny Shemite half-raised his hands as if to shield himself from the other's anger. "So I was told, master. He sent a message to some wench at the tavern that he would be away some time, that he was riding to the northeast."
Imhep-Aton's scowl deepened. Northeast? There was nothing to the .... The caravan route from Khesron to Sultanapur. Could the barbarian be thinking of selling the pendants in the very country from which they came? Obviously he had decided to work for himself. But, Set, why the dancing girls? He shook his vulturine head angrily. The savage's reasons were of no account.
"Prepare horses and sumpter animals for the two of us at once," he commanded. "We ride to the northeast." The Cimmerian would pay for this betrayal.
Chapter VII
The Well of the Kings lay some days to the east and west of Shadizar, surrounded by huge, toppled slabs of black stone, worn by rain and wind. Some said they were the remains of a wall, but none knew when or by whom it could have been built, as none knew what kings had claimed the well.
Conan walked his horse between the slabs and into the stunted trees, to the well of rough stones, and dismounted. On the other side of the well, back under the trees, four swarthy men in dirty keffiyehs squatted, watching him with dark eyes that shifted greedily to his horse. He flipped back the edge of his Khauranian cloak so they could see his sword, and heaved on the hoist pole to lift a bucket of water from the depths. Other than his cloak, he was covered only by a breechclout, for he liked to travel unencumbered.
The four moved closer together, whispering darkly without looking away from him. One, the leader by the deference the others showed, wore rusting ring mail, his followers breastplates of boiled leather. All had ancient scimitars at their hips, the sort a decent weapons dealer sold for scrap. Behind them Conan could see a woman, naked and bound in a package, wrists and elbows secured behind her back, knees under her chin, heels drawn in tight to her buttocks. She raised her head, tossing back a mane of dark red hair, and stared at him in surprise, tilted green eyes above a dirty twist of cloth for a gag. The fortuneteller.
Conan emptied the bucket in a worn stone trough for his horse, and drew up another for himself. The last time he had helped this woman, she had shown not even the gratitude to warn him of the two Iranistanis'
attack. Besides, he had Velita to find. He dashed water in his face, though it made little difference in the gritty heat, and upended the rest of the bucket over his head. The four men gabbled on.
So far he had tracked the pilgrims by questioning those passersby who would let an armed man of his size approach them. Enough had glimpsed something to keep him on this path, but in the last day he had seen only an old man who threw rocks and ran to hide in the thorn scrub, and a boy who had seen nothing.
"Have you fellows seen anything of pilgrims?" he said, levering up yet another bucket of water. "Hooded men on horseback, with camels?"
The leader's sharp nose twitched. "An we did, what's for us?"
"A few coppers, if you can tell me where they are." There was no reason to tempt this lot. After a day when he could be traveling away from the men he sought, he had no time to waste killing vultures. He put on a pleasant smile. "If I had silver or gold, I'd not be out chasing pilgrims. I'd be in Shadizar, drinking."
He dried his hands on his cloak, just in case.
"What do you want with those pilgrims?" the sharp-nosed man wanted to know.
"That's my affair," Conan replied. "And theirs. Yours is the coppers, if you've seen them."
"Well, as to that, we have," sharp-nose said, dusting off his h
ands and getting up. He started toward Conan with his hand out. "Let's see the color of your coins."
Conan dug into the leather pouch at his belt with his right hand, and sharp-nose's grin turned nasty. A short dagger with a triangular blade appeared in his fist. Laughing wickedly, the other three pulled their scimitars and rushed forward to join the kill.
Without pausing a beat Conan snatched up the bucket left-handed and smashed it down on the man's head, blood and water flying in all directions. "No time!" he shouted. He plucked the dagger from its forearm sheath, and of a sudden its hilt was sticking from the throat of the foremost attacker. Even as it struck Conan was unlimbering his broadsword. "Bel strike you!" He leaped across the collapsing man, who was clutching the dagger in his throat with blood-covered hands. "I've no time!" A sweeping slash of the broad blade, and the third man's torso sank to the ground where his head was already spinning. "No time, curse you!" The last man had his scimitar raised high when Conan lunged with a two-handed grip and plunged his blade through leather breastplate, chest and backbone. Black eyes filmed over, and the man toppled to one side with his hands still raised above his head.
Conan put a foot on the leather armor and tugged his sword free, wiping it clean on the man's dingy keffiyeh before he sheathed it. The dagger was retrieved from its temporary home in a brigand's throat and cleaned in the same way. The woman watched him wide-eyed, starting away as much as her bonds allowed when he came near, but he only cut the cords and turned away, sheathing his dagger.
"If you don't have your own horse," he said, "you can have one of these vermin's. The rest are mine. You can have the weapons, if you want. They'll fetch something for your trouble." But not much, he thought.
Still, he owed her nothing, and the horses, poor as they were likely to be, would be a help if he had to pursue those accursed pilgrims far.
The red-haired woman rubbed her wrists as she walked to the dead men, unashamed of her nakedness.
She was an ivory-skinned callimastian delight, all curves and long legs and rounded places. There was a spring to her walk that made him wonder if she was a dancer. She picked up one of the scimitars, ran a contemptuous eye along its rust-pitted blade, and suddenly planted a bare foot solidly in the ribs of one of the dead men.
"Pig!" she spat.
Conan went about gathering the horses, five of them, one noticeably better than the rest, while she kicked and reviled each body in turn. Abruptly she whirled to face him, feet well apart, fist on rounded hip, scimitar swinging free. With her tousled hair in an auburn mane about her head, she had the air of a lioness brought to human form.
"They took me unawares," she announced.
"Of course," Conan said. "I suppose the black is yours? Best of the lot." He braided the reins of the other four, hairy plains animals two hands shorter at the shoulder than his own Turanian gray, and fastened them to his highpommeled saddle. "Best for you would be to go straight back to Shadizar. It's dangerous out here for a woman alone. What possessed you to try it in the first place?"
She took a quick step toward him. "I said they took me unawares! They'd have died on my blade, else!"
"And I said of course. I can't take you back to the city. I seek men who took something that... that belongs to me."
A pantherine howl jerked him around, and he tumbled backwards between the horses just in time to avoid decapitation by her curved blade. "Derketo take you!" she howled, thrusting at him under a horse's belly. He rolled aside, and the blade gouged the packed earth where his head had been.
Scrambling on his back, he tried at once to avoid her steel and the hooves of the horses, now dancing excitedly as she moved swiftly around them trying to stab him. The roiling of them brought him suddenly looking out from under a shaggy belly at her as she pulled back her scimitar for yet another thrust.
Desperately his legs uncoiled, propelling him out to tackle her around the knees. They went down in a heap together on the hard ground, and he found his arms full of female wildcat, clawing and kicking and trying to jerk her sword arm loose. Her soft curves padded her firm muscle, and she was no easy packet to hold.
"Have you gone mad, woman?" he shouted. For an answer she sank her teeth into his shoulder. "Crom!"
He hurled her away from him. She rolled across the ground and bounded to her feet. Still, he saw wonderingly, gripping the rusty sword.
"I need no man to protect me!" she spat. "I'm not some pampered concubine!"
"Who said you were?" he roared.
Then he had to jerk his sword free of its scabbard as she rushed at him with a howl of pure rage. Her green eyes burned, and her face was twisted with fury. He swung up his sword to block her downward slash. With a sharp snap the rusty scimitar broke, leaving her to stare in disbelief at the bladeless hilt in her hands.
Almost without a pause she hurled the useless hilt at his face and spun to dash for the dead men by the well. Their weapons still lay about them. Conan darted after her, and as she bent to snatch another scimitar, he swung the flat of his blade with all his strength at the tempting target thus offered. She lifted up on her toes with a strangled shriek as the steel paddle cracked against her rounded nates. Arms windmilling, she staggered forward, her foot slipping in a pool of blood, and screaming she plunged headfirst over the crude stone wall of the well.
Conan dived as she went over; his big hand closed on flesh, and he was dragged to his armpits into the well by the weight of her. He discovered he was holding the red-haired wench by one ankle while she dangled over the depths. An interesting view, he thought.
"Derketo take you!" she howled. "Pull me up, you motherless whelp!"
"In Shadizar," he said conversationally, "I saved you a mauling. You called me a barbar boy, let a man near take my head off, and left without a word of thanks."
"Son of a diseased camel! Spawn of a bagnio! Pull me up!"
"Now here," he went on as if she had not spoken, "all I did was save you from rape, certainly, perhaps from being sold on the slave block. Or maybe they'd just have slit your throat once they were done with you." She wriggled violently, and he edged further over the rim to let her drop another foot. Her scream echoed up the stone cylinder. She froze into immobility.
"You had no thought of saving me," she rasped breathlessly. "You'd have ridden off to leave me if those dogs hadn't tried you."
"All the same, if I had ridden on, or if they'd killed me, you'd be wondering what you'd fetch at market."
"And you want a reward," she half wept. "Derketo curse you, you smelly barbar oaf?"
"That's the second time you've called me that," he said grimly. "What I want from you is an oath, by Derketo since you call on the goddess of love and death. An oath that you'll never again let an uncivil word pass your lips toward me, and that you'll never again raise a hand against me."
"Hairy lout! Dung-footed barbar! Do you think you can force me to-"
He cut her off. "My hand is getting sweaty. I wouldn't wait too long. You might slip." Silence answered him. "Or then again, I might grow tired of waiting."
"I will swear." Her voice was suddenly soft and sensuously yielding. "Pull me up, and I'll swear on my knees to anything you command."
"Swear first," he replied. "I'd hate to have to toss you back in. Besides, I like the view." He thought he heard the sound of a small fist smacking the stone wall of the well in frustration, and smiled.
"You untrusting ape," she snarled with all her old ferocity. "Very well. I swear, by Derketo, that I'll speak no uncivil word to you, nor raise a hand against you. I swear it. Are you satisfied?"
He hoisted her straight up out of the well, and let her drop on the hard ground with a thud and a grunt.
"You...." She bit her lip and glared up at him from the ground. "You didn't have to be so rough," she said in a flat tone. Instead of answering, he unfastened his swordbelt, propping the scabbard against the well.
"What-what are you doing?"
"You spoke of a reward." He stepped out
of his breechclout. "Since I doubt a word of thanks will ever crack your teeth, I'm collecting my own reward."
"So you're nothing but a ravisher of women after all," she said bitterly.
"That was close to an uncivil word, wench. And no ravishment. All you need to do is say, 'stop,' and you'll leave this place as chaste as a virgin for all of me."
He lowered himself onto her, and though she beat at his shoulders with her fists and filled the air with vile curses the word 'stop' never once passed her lips, and soon her cries changed their nature, for she was a woman fully fledged, and he knew something of women.
After he regained his clothes and his weapons while she rummaged among the dead men's things to cover herself. Her own garments, she said, had been ripped to shreds. He noted that this time she inspected the weapons carefully before selecting one, but he had no worries at turning his back on her even after she had belted it on. When she had been turning the air blue, not one of her curses had been directed at him.
If she could keep her oath then, he was sure she would keep it now.
Once he had filled his goatskin waterbags, he swung into his saddle.
"Hold a moment," she called. "What's your name?" She had clothed herself in flowing pantaloons of bright yellow and an emerald tunic that was far too tight across the chest, though loose elsewhere. A braided gold cord held her auburn mane back from her face. He had seen her dig it out from the purse of one of the dead men.
"Conan," he said. "Conan of Cimmeria. And you?"
"My name is Karela," she said proudly, "of whatever land I happen to be standing on. Tell me, these pilgrims you seek, they have something of great value? I don't see you as a holy man, Conan of Cimmeria."
If he told her about the pendants, she would no doubt want to go with him. From the way she had handled her sword he was sure she could pull her weight, but even so he did not want her along. Let her get a sniff of ten thousand pieces of gold, and he would have to sleep with both eyes open, oath or no.
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